The Commentariat -- July 11, 2015

Internal links removed.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine people at a church in South Carolina three weeks ago, was only able to purchase the gun used in the attack because of breakdowns in the FBI's background-check system, FBI Director James B. Comey said Friday.... The lapse was the result of errors not only by the FBI but by the Lexington County prosecutors' office, and Comey said he has ordered a review of procedures that led to the failure. The errors came to light as investigators examined a gun purchase Roof made two months before the shooting in Charleston." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic has more details on the screw-up. CW: It seems to me the wait period for purchasing a gun should be longer than three days, bureaucracies being what they are.

Lisa Rein & Joe Davidson of the Washington Post: "Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta resigned under pressure on Friday, a day after Obama administration officials announced that two major breaches last year of U.S. government databases holding personnel records and security-clearance files exposed sensitive information about at least 22.1 million people. Archuleta, who had been leading the personnel agency for just 17 months, had been under fire from Republicans and Democrats in Congress and federal employee unions in the five weeks since she disclosed a massive hack of the employment files of 4.2 million current and former federal employees. But calls for her resignation grew late Thursday after administration officials revealed the full scope of a second hack that compromised background investigation files of federal employees, contractors, applicants and their families."

** Dana Milbank: "Thursday's Confederate flag debacle [in the House of Representatives] is a direct consequence of House Speaker John Boehner's leadership strategy. Calculating that compromise with the Democratic minority will cause his conservative caucus to oust him from the speakership, Boehner has essentially chosen to pass a legislative agenda with only Republican votes. Because this leaves him a thin margin for error, it empowers the most extreme conservatives in the House, who have an incentive to withhold their votes if they don't get everything they want.... Boehner seemed not to know what to do about the mess his lowest-common-denominator leadership caused.... Here's one idea: Show some leadership." ...

... Cristina Marcos & Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "House Republicans are hitting the brakes on consideration of spending bills after leaders yanked a measure from the floor this week over the display of the Confederate flag. The House was originally slated to consider the 2016 spending bill for Financial Services next week, but the odds are now low for it hitting the floor. Republicans are worried that Democrats could try to offer more amendments related to the display of the Confederate flag that could again tie the GOP into knots." CW: Yup, it's all Democrats' fault.

Paul Ryan Really, Really Does Not Want You to Have Health Insurance. Sarah Ferris of the Hill: Paul Ryan, Chair of the House Ways & Means Committee (R-Wis.) "on Friday vowed to keep fighting to repeal ObamaCare through budget reconciliation even as the tactic is losing support from some within the GOP.... When asked if Ryan would want to repeal all of ObamaCare using the budget tactic, he said yes, but added that he is still figuring out what can be done 'given the restraints of reconciliation.'"

Jonathan Bernstein of Bloomberg: "President Barack Obama's grade as top manager of the executive branch continues to sink. At this point, a C- would be generous. Cases of mismanagement at the agency level include:

• The Office of Personnel Management computer hack;
• The Snowden theft from the National Security Agency;
• The Department of Veterans Affairs scheduling fiasco;
• The healthcare.gov rollout;
• Unending problems at the Secret Service.

     "... These aren't policy failures. They're just cases where the government bungles when carrying out policy.... The problem isn't a bunch of Obama-appointed crooks or incompetents. Instead, Obama just seems indifferent to executive branch performance. At least until there are problems that draw national press attention." CW: Let's add the federal/state background-check system to the list of SNAFUs. ...

... AND here's another. Danny Vinik in Politico: In 2008, in the wake of Hurricane Katrinia, "Congress created three new programs to get loans to small businesses quickly. Since the new emergency lending programs were born, American small businesses have been hit by Hurricane Irene, Hurricane Sandy, and other disasters. And here's how many loans the new programs have secured for small businesses in that time: Zero.... This week the Small Business Administration came under Congressional fire for what appears to be a total failure to execute the mission of issuing emergency loans. A long trail of GAO reports details this record of failure, and the SBA's perplexing inability to explain why businesses haven't received a dollar yet...." ...

... CW: President Obama came into office with no executive experience; that is, he didn't know how to run a huge organization. I don't think any POTUS should spend his nights reading GAO, Inspectors General, other watchdog & media reports. But s/he does have to have a top dog in the administration who spends her days doing that -- and then kicking ass when these reports cite problems or potential problems. Obviously, Obama neglected to do that. That error of omission can affect millions of Americans as deeply as do many of Congress's glaring failures to protect the public. I'm with Bernstein; this is a real failure of governance.

James Risen of the New York Times: "The Central Intelligence Agency's health professionals repeatedly criticized the agency's post-Sept. 11 interrogation program, but their protests were rebuffed by prominent outside psychologists who lent credibility to the program, according to a sweeping new report. The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation's psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon. The report concludes that some of the association's top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association's ethics policies in line with the interrogation policies of the Defense Department, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.'s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency." ...

... Spencer Ackerman of the Guardian: "The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis ... after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions."

Julia Preston of the New York Times: "Government lawyers labored on Friday to persuade federal appeals court judges [in New Orleans] to allow President Obama to move ahead with sweeping initiatives to protect immigrants in the country illegally. But the judges' questions seemed to make it ever more unlikely that the president's programs, which he has hoped would be a central piece of his legacy, would start any time before the last months of his term, if at all." ...

... Tom Dart of the Guardian: While a 3-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments inside the New Orleans federal courthouse about President Obama's Deferred Action for Parental Accountability -- against which a lower court imposed & injunction & another Fifth Circuit panel refused to lift the injunction --hundreds of demonstrators massed outside protesting the injunction.

Nina Totenberg of NPR: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Thursday provided an unusual peek behind the scenes at how the court did its work this term. It's true, she said, that the liberal justices tried to be disciplined about having their majority opinions, and even their dissents, speak with one voice in one opinion. 'The stimulus,' she said, 'actually began many, many years before ... when the court announced its decision in Bush v. Gore.'"

David Jackson of USA Today: "President Obama created three new national monuments via executive order Friday, setting aside more than 1 million acres of public land in three states":

Nick Gass of Politico: "President Barack Obama will become the first sitting chief executive to visit a federal prison when he goes to El Reno, Oklahoma, next week to meet with law enforcement officials and inmates as part of the administration's push for criminal-justice reform."

Angeliki Koutantou & Alastair Macdonald of Reuters: "Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won backing from lawmakers on Saturday for painful reform proposals aimed at obtaining a new international bailout, but he faced a rebellion in his own party that could threaten his majority in parliament.The measures, which received an initial green light from the European Union and International Monetary Fund before a crucial meeting of the 19 euro zone finance ministers in Brussels, were passed with the support of pro-European opposition parties.With Greece's banks shut and completely dependent on a credit lifeline from the European Central Bank, the measures were seen as a last chance to avert financial collapse and prevent Greece from being pushed out of the euro." ...

... The Guardian is liveblogging developments.

Michael Gordon & David Sanger of the New York Times: "One of the last major obstacles to concluding a historic nuclear deal with Iran is a dispute over a set of United Nations sanctions that appeared to be resolved months ago and only peripherally has to do with nuclear weapons. The sanctions, passed in a series of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council beginning nine years ago, ban the shipment of conventional arms into and out of Iran."

Presidential Race

Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "In her standard stump speech, Hillary Rodham Clinton talks about fighting income inequality, celebrating court rulings on gay marriage and health care, and, since the Emanuel AME Church massacre, toughening the nation's gun laws. That last component marks an important evolution in presidential politics. For at least the past several decades, Democrats seeking national office have often been timid on the issue of guns for fear of alienating firearms owners.... Gun control is one of the few issues on which Clinton has a more left-leaning record than [Sen. Bernie] Sanders, who represents a rural, pro-gun-rights state and has voted in the past for legislation to protect the firearms industry." ...

... Cameron Joseph of the New York Daily News: Bernie Sanders & Honora Laszlo, a local Virginia chairwoman of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, get into a row over Sanders' failure to support for some gun-control legislation.

Ed Kilgore: "... the sheer number of things a would-be GOP president is expected to promise to rescind, repeal, suspend, ignore, or defy is getting very, very long. It won't be easy for the eventual nominee to get through this vast list of reactionary commitments and then slide into a smooth rap that my campaign is about the future."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "No, Donald Trump isn't a frontrunner.... This new poll from The Economist (and the online polling firm YouGov, which does not meet the Post's standards for polling) does have Trump in first place, leading lots of people to declare him the frontrunner. That poll is iffy.... But even if the methodology were beyond question, Trump isn't the frontrunner for the same reason that there's been no clear frontrunner in any poll: margins of error.... What's a frontrunner look like? It looks like Hillary Clinton, who in most national polls could have a margin of error of 20 points and still have daylight between her and Bernie Sanders." CW: Oh noes! And I just got back from the hairdresser's sporting a celebratory comb-over.

Jeb! Talks the Talk; Walker Walks the Walk. Gillian White of the Atlantic: "This week..., Jeb Bush was harshly criticized for saying that the solution to some of America's economic woes could be solved if Americans worked more hours. Republican politicians in Wisconsin are trying to make this theory reality, with a proposal to allow seven-day workweeks.... Though Walker might not have a direct hand in the current seven-day workweek proposal, his [earlier] changes [gutting labor-friendly laws] have certainly helped set the stage for decreased opposition to such a bill."

The New York Times Can't Handle the Truth. Jesse Byrnes of the Hill: "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign is blasting The New York Times for not including the GOP presidential candidate's book on its influential bestseller list. It described the newspaper's initial explanations for not including the recently released A Time For Truth as 'cryptic' and 'false,' and suggested the Times 'does not want people to read the book.'" CW: Freedom of the press or something is at stake here, people. Coincidentally, what a fabulous fundraising tool for renowned author & political philosopher Ted Cruz. ...

... McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "Publishing giant HarperCollins is publicly pushing back against the New York Times' claim that Ted Cruz's new book, A Time For Truth, was disqualified from its bestseller list because sales were limited to 'strategic bulk purchases.' In a statement provided to BuzzFeed News, HarperCollins publicity director Tina Andreadis said the company looked into the matter and 'found no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization.'" ...

... BUT. Steve M. has more on how Ted (and maybe HarperCollins) tried to game the system. As for the Times' trying to suppress the work of a budding literary giant, "books by conservatives make the Times list on a regular basis." ...

... The Salon piece, by Scott Kaufman, which Steve cites, is here. Kaufman has more on confederate outrage. You never know if these people are ignoramuses or phonies. Maybe both.

Beyond the Beltway

Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "A three-judge federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously affirmed the public corruption convictions against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, thoroughly rejecting each argument from the onetime Republican rising star and declaring that they had 'no cause to undo what has been done.'"

Kevin Miller of the Portland Press Herald: "Maine Attorney General Janet Mills [D] said Friday that 19 bills held by Gov. Paul LePage have become law, dismissing the LePage administration's contention that the Legislature had adjourned. In a four-page letter released late Friday afternoon, Mills said LePage missed the 10-day window allowed under the Maine Constitution to either sign or veto the bills. There are another 51 bills sitting on LePage's desk, and under Mills' opinion, those also would become law unless LePage vetoes them by midnight Saturday." ...

... AP: "Members of Maine's Franco-American community are frustrated by Republican Gov. Paul LePage's self-deprecating humor about his French heritage. LePage said this week that the veto process laid out in the state's Constitution is very clear. He added that 'even I can understand it and I'm French.' Last week, he told reporters they were misusing a word and said 'that's coming from a Frenchman.'... Former state senator and representative Judy Ayotte Paradis of Frenchville said LePage is 'reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman.'" CW: Actually, Ms. Paradis; every time LePage opens his mouth, he's "reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman."

News Ledes

AP: "Bailout discussions between the Greek finance minister and his skeptical counterparts in the 19-country eurozone will resume Sunday after breaking up following more than eight hours of talks without any apparent breakthrough that will secure the country's future in the euro." ...

... Reuters: "euro finance ministers demanded on Saturday that Greece go beyond painful austerity measures accepted by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras if he wants them to open negotiations on a third bailout for his bankrupt country to keep it in the euro."

Washington Post: "Serena Williams won her fourth consecutive Grand Slam title and 21st of her career on Saturday by beating Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, 6-4, 6-4, at Wimbledon. It is her sixth Wimbledon championship."

GOP Economic Plan -- Explained

By Akhilleus:

Days of Future Past or How Scott Walker, Jeb! Bush and the GOP Prove That the Past is Our Future.

Jeb! wants us all to work longer so that he and his family can have more days off.

Scott Walker wants to banish days off completely including weekends for all working people, except, of course, for himself. He, after all, doesn't actually do any work. Besides, his masters, the Kochs, don't believe in weekends or days off.

Days of Sloth for the riff-raff do not contribute a dime to Koch bank accounts and do not promote the development of a thrifty working class populated by inferiors who will happily work as long as they are told for wages that wouldn't buy the Kochs a hard boiled egg.

I found a short clip that will demonstrate the future--or should I say past--of Wisconsin, and by extension, the rest of the country once Walker/Bush/GOP/Kochs get through with us.

"Turning back the clock" is Republican for "progress".

CW Note: See the commentary linked under Friday's Presidential Race news re: Jeb!'s prescription for national economic growth. It all backs up Akhilleus's thesis.

The Commentariat -- July 10, 2015

Internal links removed.

Put the white men up front, please.Richard Fausset & Alan Blinder of the New York Times: "South Carolina, the first state to secede from the union, dispatched with a lasting symbol of the Civil War on Thursday as Gov. Nikki R. Haley signed a law removing the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House." ...

... Fausset & Blinder are wondering how the flag will be removed inasmuch as "The pole to which the flag is attached appears to have no mechanism -- no winch, pulley, or rope -- that a person on the ground might use to bring it down." CW: I suggest Nikki Haley give Bree Newsome a call & ask her to do the honors. Newsome says she won't be attending the ceremony, but Haley could offer her clemency as an incentive.

... Amanda Hopuch & Oliver Laughland of the Guardian: "The battle flag of the former American Confederacy will stop flying at South Carolina's statehouse on Friday..., 150 years after the south lost a civil war fought largely over slavery, and for which the flag's endurance has remained a lasting symbol of racism. Governor Nikki Haley was prepared to sign legislation on Thursday that would require the flag to be removed from government grounds within 24 hours. Her office said it would be taken down from a flagpole near the capitol at 10am the next day, after flying there for nearly 54 years." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Gene Robinson, a South carolina native, on why taking down the flag matters. ...

... Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "The battle over the Confederate flag landed with ferocity Thursday in the U.S. Capitol amid an unexpected debate on the display of the southern 'Battle Flag' in federal cemeteries for veterans. House Democrats accused Republicans of catering to the large bloc of southern conservatives in initially promoting an amendment that some viewed as pro-Confederate. Republicans accused Democrats of trying to exploit the tragedy of the mass killing inside a Charleston church last month and the subsequent decision by South Carolina leaders to remove the controversial flag from their state capitol. The recriminations built throughout the day despite House Speaker John A. Boehner's effort to ease the tension. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he would soon create an informal bipartisan group to review all matters related to the display of Confederate memorabilia, likely to include those in the U.S. Capitol." ...

... Sandra Pedicini of the Orlando Sentinel: "Walt Disney World has joined the list of businesses and governments distancing themselves from the Confederate flag. The resort has removed a version of the Confederate banner from a flag display in Epcot's American Adventure. Disney acknowledged it took down the flag recently but would not comment further."

Greg Mlller & Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "U.S. authorities have arrested more than 10 people over the past four weeks who were suspected of having ties to the Islamic State, including several who may have been planning terrorist attacks to coincide with the July 4 holiday, FBI Director James B. Comey said Thursday. The arrests were part of a flurry of law enforcement activity over the past month amid counterterrorism officials' warnings of a heightened danger of attacks leading up to Independence Day." ...

... CW: Charles Pierce isn't buying Comey's assertions. CW: I had some of the same thoughts Pierce expresses when I read Miller & Nakashima's report. However, I think that over the years federal law enforcement has prevented some attacks, & they may well have prevented one or more this summer. I'd sure rather be reading Comey's assertions than stories about an attack that did take place. Call me gullible, but I'm not ready to discount Comey's claims.

Human Error. Rupert Neate of the Guardian: "The more than three-and-a-half hour New York stock exchange shutdown on Wednesday was caused by engineers loading the wrong software on to the system, the NYSE admitted on Thursday. The NYSE said the shutdown, which sent some traders into panic about a possible cyber terrorist attack, was sparked by its systems being 'not loaded with the proper configuration compatible' with new a software upgrade." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post: "The massive hack last year of the Office of Personnel Management's system containing security clearance information affected 21.5 million people, including current and former employees, contractors and their families and friends, officials said Thursday. That is in addition to a separate hack -- also last year -- of OPM's personnel database that affected 4.2 million people. That number was previously announced." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Raya Jalabi of the Guardian: "In a statement, the [Office of Personnel Management] said the number of those affected by the hack included 19.7 million individuals who applied for a background investigation 'and 1.8 million non-applicants, predominantly spouses or co-habitants of applicants'.... Anyone who has undergone a background check through OPM since 2000 'is highly likely' to be affected, the agency said. It is less likely, but still possible, that those who underwent background checks before 2000 would be affected.... In its statement, OPM announced several steps it has taken and will take to 'protect' those impacted by the breach, including providing identity theft insurance; identity monitoring for minor children; credit and fraud monitoring; and 'full service identity restoration support and victim recovery assistance'. These services will only be provided for free for three years." The OPM statement is here.

Hanna Trudo of Politico: "Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced on Thursday that federal marriage benefits will be made accessible to same-sex couples across America.... 'I am proud to announce that the critical programs for veterans and elderly and disabled Americans, which previously could not give effect to the marriages of couples living in states that did not recognize those marriages, will now provide federal recognition for all marriages nationwide,' Lynch said. Agencies are currently working to provide guidance to implement the law change, according to Lynch's statement." ...

     ... CW: Seems obvious that any marriage benefits that any government entity provides must be afforded to all married couples. Maybe what she's talking about here is benefits that require a specified length of marriage to accrue; for instance, to get the "Social Security survivor's benefit, a widow or widower must have been married to the deceased worker at the time of his or her death and for at least nine months immediately prior to the day in which the worker died."

New York Times Editors: "... public employees [who refuse to serve same-sex couples] seem to forget that taxpayers pay them to do their job. If doing that job violates his or her religious beliefs, the best solution is to find another job, as several have done in the days since the Obergefell ruling.Some same-sex marriage opponents argue that under state religious-freedom laws, a government employee's beliefs should be accommodated so long as another official is available to carry out the task. But government employees do not have a constitutionally protected right to pick and choose which members of the public they will serve, no matter their religious beliefs.... The Constitution's protection of religious freedom simply does not include the right to discriminate against others in the public sphere." ...

... ** Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post: "Same-sex marriage opponents like to claim that public officials are entitled to reasonable accommodation of their religious beliefs. But that fundamentally misunderstands the legal history of religious accommodations. Courts have said, again and again, that accommodations may be granted only if they do not injure or substantially burden a third party (which includes injuring the dignity of same-sex couples by denying them marriage licenses) or otherwise wreak havoc on the legal system."

Frank Rich on the presidential race & racism. Rich really does not care for Hillary Clinton.

Damon Linker of the Week: "The GOP doesn't have a Donald Trump problem. It has an angry conservative base problem.... [The] ragtag conglomeration of ideological radicals... of the postwar John Birch Society and similar groups ... had no natural political home in the major parties. But they've been drawn to the Republican Party ever since Barry Goldwater became their champion.... It was Ronald Reagan who truly brought them en masse into the Republican Party.... More than 30 years later, they've grown and spread like a fungus (thanks to the fertilization efforts of Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes). The populists are the now base of the party -- its most loyal and devoted members, surpassed only by super-rich donors for influence.... What the Republican Party needs isn't more courageous candidates and elites. It's a new electorate."

Tim Egan: It's the mother of all ironies that a nation where all but about 2 percent (the Native Americans) of the population can trace its lineage to some distant land is now going through another of its anti-immigrant moments. But good news: The 2015 version is a weak strain of the earlier tea."

Linda Greenhouse finds more ways of demonstrating that the Roberts Court is not a liberal court. Expect it to look more like the "Alito court" next year. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

How Congress Helped Create Puerto Rico's Debt Crisis. Michael Fletcher & Steven Mufson of the Washington Post: "A generous series of tax breaks enacted by Congress shielded the profits of U.S. corporations operating [in Puerto Rico] and helped transform Puerto Rico from a largely agrarian society to a manufacturing powerhouse.... When Congress decided to phase out a crucial tax credit that ended in 2005, it helped plunge Puerto Rico into a recession that began a decade ago and has yet to end.... Now, it's again at the mercy of Washington, as [Gov. Alejandro] García Padilla asks Congress and the president to allow the island and its public corporations -- which provide basic services including electricity and water -- to file for bankruptcy, a process that would give Puerto Rico and its creditors an orderly way to restructure the territory's staggering debt." CW: An American horror story worth reading in full.

Liz Alderman & James Kanter of the New York Times: "Only a day after grim predictions of financial and social collapse in Greece, a scramble appeared underway to work out the details of a new bailout package to bring the country back from the brink.... [Greek] Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ... seemed to have gained ground on debt relief, his one bedrock demand. Germany's truculent finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, finally gave a little on that Thursday, admitting that 'debt sustainability is not feasible without a haircut,' or writedown of debt, even if he then appeared to backtrack.... What was breathtaking ... was how in a matter of hours the entire dynamic in the Greek crisis seemed to shift, from apocalyptic warnings of a Zimbabwe in the Balkans, to a fresh optimism that the basics of a deal could be worked out." ...

... David Jolly & Liz Alderman of the New York Times: "Investor optimism surged on Friday for a second day after Greece took a big step toward reaching a deal with its creditors." ...

... Paul Krugman: "... the people most likely to deliver a Greek-style economic disaster here in America are the very people who love to use Greece as a boogeyman.... If you really worry that the U.S. might turn into Greece, you should focus your concern on America's right. Because if the right gets its way on economic policy -- slashing spending while blocking any offsetting monetary easing -- it will, in effect, bring the policies behind the Greek disaster to America."

Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Thursday that the United States and its negotiating partners 'will not rush, and we will not be rushed' into finalizing a nuclear deal with Iran, but warned they will abandon talks soon if Iran doesn't make the 'tough decisions' needed for an agreement. 'This is not open-ended,' he said after walking on crutches to a podium outside the Coburg Palace hotel...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.

Jim Yardley & William Neuman of the New York Times: In Santa Cruz, Bolivia, "Pope Francis offered a direct apology on Thursday for the complicity of the Roman Catholic Church in the oppression of Latin America during the colonial era, even as he called for a global social movement to shatter a 'new colonialism' that has fostered inequality, materialism and the exploitation of the poor. Speaking to a hall filled with social activists, farmers, garbage workers and Bolivian indigenous people, Francis offered the most ambitious, and biting, address of his South American tour. He repeated familiar themes in sharply critiquing the global economic order and warning of environmental catastrophe -- but also added a twist with his apology."

Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "Russia's aggressive behavior and its nuclear arsenal make it the single greatest national security threat faced by the United States, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. said Thursday at a Senate hearing on his nomination as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Dunford, the Marine commandant, appeared far more confident that the military could step in if necessary if negotiations on a nuclear deal with Tehran fail. Asked whether the military has the ability to destroy Iran's nuclear program, General Dunford was unequivocal. 'My understanding is that we do, Senator,' he said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Dylan Byers of Politico has wingers in a tizzy because the New York Times has kept Ted Cruz's book off its best-seller list even though, according to Byers, "the book has sold more copies in its first week than all but two of the Times' bestselling titles." ...

     ... CW: What Byers doesn't bother to explain to readers, & which he almost certainly knows, is that political books often don't make the list because the Times, as its spokesperson hints, tries to count only "real" sales. Big political donors often buy up thousands of copies of politicians' books -- at deep discounts -- then distribute the books to likely voters, campaign workers, etc. I don't know it for a fact, but that's probably what happened here, not some East-Coast-liberal-elite plot to sabotage Ted's excellent writing career. ...

     ... Update. Oh, Snap! Byers' updates his post: "'In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases,' [the Times spokesperson] wrote." ...

     ... Update 2: Margaret Hartmann on the winger wingout & on the Times' "secret formula" for rating book sales....

... CW: Now, class, we will compare & contrast Dylan Byers' "reporting" with Hartmann's reporting. (For more on Byers' reporting methods, you may consult Dana Milbank's 2014 rebuttal to a Byers column trashing Milbank.)

Presidential Race

Dan Roberts of the Guardian: "Bernie Sanders cemented his appeal to older voters on Thursday with renewed calls for an expansion of social security and protection of Medicare from alleged assaults by Republicans.... 'The momentum is with us and not with them,' said the Vermont senator to chants of 'Bernie, Bernie' at the Alliance for Retired Americans annual legislative conference in Washington." ...

... Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney's strategist in 2012, in the Daily Beast, on how Clinton could lose the nomination to Sanders. Take Stevens' commentary with a grain of salt, but here's a reminder of Hillary's record:

Hillary Clinton has supported every U.S. war since Vietnam. She supported not only DOMA, which her husband signed, but a travel ban on those who were HIV positive. She supported welfare cuts (remember her husband's efforts toward 'ending welfare as we know it'?). She supports the death penalty and campaigned in her husband's place during the 1992 New Hampshire primary when he left to oversee the execution of an African-American man whose suicide attempt left him brain damaged.

And if 'mass incarceration' is a problem today, keep in mind she has long advocated for the criminal justice policies that called for locking up more people for longer periods. She supports -- and, as Secretary of State, participated in -- the U.S. policy of targeted assassinations, including when the targets were American citizens.

In a political environment in which income inequality is a rallying cry, she makes $300K plus expenses an hour. In fact, she would be the wealthiest person elected president in the modern era.

Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "Jeb Bush and his allies announced on Thursday that they had amassed more than $114 million in campaign cash over the last six months, dwarfing the combined fund-raising of his Republican rivals for the party's presidential nomination. The announcements, made as many of his donors were gathering at his family's compound [in Kennebunkport, Maine,] to celebrate their success, established Mr. Bush as his party's financial powerhouse. They also underscored how the Supreme Court's five-year-old Citizens United decision continues to remake the way presidential campaigns are waged. Almost all of the money was raised before Mr. Bush formally declared his candidacy last month, collected by a 'super PAC' that Mr. Bush’s aides helped set up." CW: They also underscore what selfish rich people want in a president. See stories that follow re: "people need to work longer hours" & Akhilleus's comments above. ...

... Jeb! Ed O'Keefe & Matea Gold of the Washington Post: "Jeb Bush's presidential campaign raised $11.4 million in the second quarter, and his allied super PAC brought in more than $103 million in the first six months of the year, giving the Republican presidential contender an unprecedented war chest as he heads into the highly competitive 2016 primary contest. The massive sum raised by the super PAC, Right to Rise USA, instantly makes it one of the most potent forces in the White House race. The group has $98 million in cash on hand." ...

     ... Paul Waldman: "This is truly an inspiring demonstration of the American people's enthusiasm for Jeb's forward-looking message of blah blah blah ... or, that a bunch of the super-rich think it would be great if he were president. Can't figure out which." ...

... The Cold Truth Behind the Gaffe. Brian Beutler: Jeb!'s remark that "people need to work longer hours" & "his equally muddled attempt to clarify them ... betray a shaky grasp of basic economic terms.... The real controversy arises not from the bloodlessness of the words he chose, but from the tactics he would use to extract the necessary labor.... When he said 'people need to work longer hours' he meant our policies should leave people little choice but to do so." ...

... "The Doofus." Josh Marshall of TPM: "It goes without saying that it's probably not good politics to say your plan to move the country forward is that everyone needs to work longer hours. It approaches 47% level toxicity. Even more damning is that it makes zero sense in policy terms. Indeed, Jeb's 'work harder' prescription provides harrowing look at the level of derp that can be produced when you take a guy who isn't all that bright and push him to the head of the national leadership line without ever having put in an honest day's work or support himself in his life.... It's unclear to me whether Bush doesn't even fully understand the policies his advisors are trying to explain to him or whether this is just standard patrician work ethic morality." ...

... Presenting President Jeb! of the United Serfs of America. Joan Walsh of Salon: "Unbelievably, in an economy in which workers have grown ever more productive over the last three decades, but productivity has not resulted in higher wages, Bush said Wednesday that they should work even longer hours.... Back in March..., Bush came out against the federal minimum wage.... And he's on record saying the Social Security retirement age needs to be raised to 70.... He also seemed to back his brother's failed push to at least partially privatize Social Security.... Finally, on the same day as his 'work longer hours' comment, Bush dismissed the debt-free college plan unveiled by former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley as an example of Democrats providing 'more free stuff.'... We'll see if the Bush approach brings in the white working class voters who were cool to Mitt Romney." ...

... Jonathan Chait: "This casual slip in usage reveals an important assumption. Bush not only prefers higher productivity in its technical meaning (higher output per hours of work), which both conservative and liberal economists consider axiomatic; he likewise considers higher levels of work implicitly preferable. Liberals do not share that assumption. And the division over this question turns out to be buried within many of the economic fights of our time.... Much of the dispute centers not on incentives but on whether workers should have the freedom to choose more leisure time.... Opposition to laws and customs that enforce periods of rest, and a culture where workers can comfortably balance their jobs against family life and leisure, sets American conservatives apart from American liberals and the rest of the Western world." ...

... Matt Ygesias of Vox: "... the last time the United States regularly saw episodes of 4 percent growth [-- Jeb!'s goal --] was back when Bill Clinton was president, and part of the story then was an increase in average annual hours worked. The more time people put in on the job, the higher GDP gets. At the time this was typically offered as a critique of the 1990s economy (see Juliet Schor's books The Overworked American and The Overspent American) on the theory that economic growth obtained through more toil rather than higher hourly pay is illusory."

** A Week to Remember. Kathy Frankovic of YouGov.com: "The Republican horserace continues to be a contest of multiple candidates -- with frontrunners sometimes ahead by only a few points, and no one dominating the race. In this week's Economist/YouGov Poll, businessman Donald Trump leads among Republicans, ahead of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Trump looks even better as a candidate this week when Republicans are asked for their second choice. When they are, Trump extends his lead. One in four Republicans who are registered to vote say he is their first or second choice." (Emphasis added.) ...

... Paul Campos in Lawyers, Guns & Money finds similarities between Trump's campaign & Ronald Reagan's: "In a GOP presidential field that isn't exactly stacked with political talent, the notion that Trump can't win the nomination is at least premature. As is the idea that he can't be elected president." ...

... Steve M. "... whether Trump is being phony or sincere, much of the political world doesn't realize that he's speaking the well-established language of modern conservatism rather than expressing prejudices that are strictly personal.... When Trump is finally out of the race..., the mainstream press will continue to insist that the real Republican Party is polite and civil and works well with others. But Trumpism will still be its underpinnings, long after Trump's 2016 campaign is forgotten." ...

... Robert Costa & Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump ... call[ed] The Post to dispute some details reported Wednesday night about a private phone call with Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee.... Trump said the call from Priebus 'was meant, in my opinion, to be a congratulatory call.... It wasn't a lecturing-type call. He's going to lecture me? Give me a break.'... Trump said that the Wednesday call with Priebus lasted between 10 and 15 minutes and ... that, near the end of their discussion, Priebus asked him to speak in a more measured way about immigration.... Priebus's outreach to Trump came after days of talks with GOP officials about how best to manage Trump's seemingly nonstop appearances on cable news programs and his unrelenting commentary on illegal immigration. Donors familiar with the exchange told The Post about the call on Wednesday and said it lasted for about 45 minutes." ...

... Karen Schwartz of the New York Times: "Three navigation coordination points above Palm Beach International Airport that had been named in honor of Donald J. Trump will be renamed, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday. 'In general, the F.A.A. chooses names that are noncontroversial,' said an agency spokeswoman, Laura Brown.... In 2010, an air traffic controller who was a fan of Mr. Trump's reality show and its catchphrase, 'You're fired,' named some of the navigation points that pilots use for takeoff from the airport DONLD, TRMMP and UFIRD." ...

... Daniel Strauss of Politico: "The Clinton Foundation has no plans to return tens of thousands of dollars in donations it received from Donald Trump - or at least none that it's willing to share."

Lauren Gambino of the Guardian: "The Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature on Thursday passed a controversial bill that would ban women from seeking non-emergency abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. The Wisconsin assembly passed the bill 61 to 34 after two hours of emotional testimony from lawmakers on both sides of the debate. The state senate had approved the legislation in June. The bill now goes to Governor Scott Walker. Eager to burnish his conservative credentials ahead of his anticipated campaign for president, Walker specifically asked the legislature to send him the bill and has said repeatedly that he will sign it."

"The Daily Cruz." Hadas Gold, et al., of Politico: "Ted Cruz has a media strategy. It's called Breitbart.com.... Breitbart.com, which boasts of having 18.7 million unique users per month -- almost all of them conservative firebrands — is funded in part by New York hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, whose family is bankrolling a pro-Cruz super PAC as well as a political data company called Cambridge Analytica that is working with Cruz's presidential campaign. Breitbart.com insists it's independent, though proudly conservative, and attributes its often-favorable assessments of Cruz to the fact that his independent brand of conservatism is appealing to its readers. But no one disputes the site's enthusiasm for Cruz."

Congressional Races

Alex Jaffe of NBC News: "Rep. Alan Grayson's reputation as a progressive bomb-thrower is exactly what's made national Democrats fearful that his bid for Senate in Florida could cost them a top pickup opportunity. But when he launched his bid on Thursday, he showed no signs of changing his tune. 'Frankly, one reason why Democrats are willing to crawl over hot coals naked to vote for me is because I'm willing to tell the truth,' he told NBC in an interview.... [Rep. Patrick] Murphy, a second-term Democrat with a proven ability to win tough races and raise huge sums, has the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee."

Marc Caputo of Politico: "Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is strongly considering a political comeback in 2016 now that a new state Supreme Court ruling nearly guarantees that a swing congressional seat will be redrawn to rope in his home along with a gaggle of Democrats.... The court ruling could also force Rep. David Jolly, the incumbent Republican of the district in question, to forgo a reelection bid and instead try his luck with an open Senate seat." (See Florida redistricting stories below.)

Beyond the Beltway

Mary Ellen Klas of the Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau: "The Florida Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to Florida's political landscape Thursday, throwing out the state's carefully crafted congressional districts drawn by the GOP-led Legislature and ordering a new map within 100 days. In the historic 5-2 ruling, the court not only ruled the maps were the product of an unconstitutional political gerrymandering, it signaled its deep distrust of lawmakers and provided detailed instructions on how to repair the flawed map in time for the 2016 election.... The new maps are likely to reconfigure nearly all of the state's 27 congressional districts, open the door to new candidates, and threaten incumbents, who will now face a new set of boundary lines and constituents close to the 2016 election." ...

     ... CW: Alrighty, then. Time for the U.S. Supremes to step in & overrule the Florida state supreme court 5-4. They're right good at that. ...

... Michael Miller & Nick Kirkpatrick of the Washington Post have more on the shady history of the redistricting: "Destroyed records. Shadowy projects with names like 'Sputnik' and 'Frankenstein.' And a college student whose identity was stolen to provide cover for political operatives." All the crooked tricks were crooked Republican tricks.

News Lede

New York Times: "Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor who rode out of the desert in the 1962 screen epic 'Lawrence of Arabia' into a glamorous if brief reign as an international star in films like 'Dr. Zhivago' and 'The Night of the Generals,' died on Friday in Cairo. He was 83."